A new exhibition at Marischal Museum marks the repatriation of a sacred head-dress to the Blood Tribe in Canada earlier this year (exhibition runs until January 2004). The horned head-dress with an eagle feather trailer was identified by members of the Blood Tribe during a visit to Aberdeen in November last year, after which they submitted a request for its repatriation. For many years they had three head-dresses and had been searching for the fourth, which was known to have been lost and which was thought to have gone overseas. The University considered their request carefully and the head-dress was handed over in July this year.
This exhibition tells the story of how the head-dress was collected by an Aberdeen woman in the 1920s and how it came to be repatriated. It also includes the only opportunity to see a photograph of the head-dress, as the University agreed not to publish photographs as this would be seen as dangerous and offensive to the Blood Tribe. The exhibition concludes with a display of the variety of opinions that appeared in newspapers this year and invites visitors to leave their own comments as part of the display.
Repatriation is an important issue that museums are now facing. The exhibition includes the first showing outside Glasgow of a copy of the Lakota Ghost Dance shirt that was repatriated by Glasgow Museums in 1999. Glasgow benefited greatly from the repatriation, receiving this copy and learning much more about the Lakota Sioux. The exhibition also explores some of the other requests for repatriation from museums that have been rejected, such as the Parthenon Sculptures (the 'Elgin Marbles)' and Benin bronze heads. It also shows objects from Scotland, raising the question about whether repatriation is only an issue facing objects collected from overseas.
Neil Curtis, Senior Curator of Marischal Museum said, "This is an unusual exhibition, revealing some of the important issues that lie behind museum work today. It has been challenging trying to summarise the complex and emotive arguments that surround the issue. For us, repatriating the head-dress has been very exciting and positive, giving us a much greater understanding of the collection and helping us to build new relationships with people from whom things have been collected."